#fake hoa

[nonooddo]

ACHEY BREAKY NEWS……

With all the predictability of heartbreak in a country song - the twists and turns of the Oddo attempt to desecrate our neighborhood has taken yet another twist. The April 2 date, that was insisted upon by Oddo, for the Full City Council vote on the wretched development proposal - has been postponed.…!

Apparently it’s now been moved to April 16. Were the City Fathers moved by all the reasonable pleas that this hideous apartment plan was being rushed…? Don’t be an idiot!

After literally HUNDREDS of us write in to the City saying ‘this is going too fast’, after we have meetings at City Hall and tell staff ‘this is too fast’, after we show up en mass at the Planning Commission and say ‘this is too fast’, after we hire a lawyer to plead the case - 'THIS IS TOO FAST' - all of that is ignored. HOWEVER - THE SECOND Oddo says 'jump'- they don’t even bother to ask how high - they just start jumping…!!

Olathe, KS gets a new City Flag

What kind of a Banana Republic is Olathe? I guess we all already know because we are all too used to this type of shit. Witness - earlier today the news came out from the Cedar Creek ‘Developer-owned’ HOA that the Landowners closest to the Oddo development site had finally gotten round to filing a Protest Petition.

(Now a Protest Petition is a technical petition that certain close - within 200 feet - neighboring landowners can file. If it’s filed, on time, after a planning commission decision, it changes the vote requirement to pass a planning measure at the Full Council from Simple Majority to Super Majority.)

WE OWN ENOUGH OF THE QUALIFIED land to have filed that Protest Petition immediately. We - the homeowners. However… as you now know, we don’t control our own assets. We don’t control our HOA. We don’t even control the name of our neighborhood. (Ask the people who have pissed off the developers and because they referred to their own neighborhood the developers are threatening to sue them…! Remarkable True Story in the Olathe Banana Republic!)

The Protest Petition discussions were among developers only…!

So here in our own ‘hood, we don’t have an HOA that is opposing the desecration of the main entrance to Cedar Creek by a rapacious developer. No… our HOA IGNORED the fact of hundreds of letters, thousands of signatures and every actual indication of opposition by all the homeowners - and it kept silent.

The OVERWHELMING response of homeowners - of Opposition to Oddo - has been ABSENT from ‘our’ HOA’s considerations. Instead we were machined against. Talked down to. Told to behave. Patronized and they even tried to bully us with threats, belittling and smears. That was the response of ‘our’ HOA…

However - when the developers that control everything out here in Cedar Creek fell out and then - accidentally did the right thing, albeit for the wrong reasons, and sided with homeowners for ONCE, then THAT is big news…!

Cue a full email blast from the FakeOA, cue some whitewashed details about the ‘discussions’ to fix the Oddo abomination…! Of course WE were not present, this was “Developers Only”. Acting like C19th Colonial Powers carving up the world, we only get told what they want us to know - after the fact. And all we are supposed to do is shout “God Save The Kaiser, or Czar, or King…!” As tho our masters had done something good - for us…! (And not something patently in their own financial interests…!)

So don’t be surprised when this song ends in heartbreak. It is as inevitable as a country tear jerker - and about as synthetic. And the next chapter can be predicted too…

Watch out for Oddo revisions to his shitty plans - something to buy off (or rather buy back) some of that ‘other developer political capital’ he just burned through. Will we be at the table next time…? Hell no, don’t be an idiot…!

…This is still Olathe Kansas…Y’all…!

[nonooddo]

"That sure is an Odd'o tune coming from our HOA....!"

There is something really rotten about an HOA that takes the side of a developer who wants to scar the very neighborhood that the HOA 'represents'...!

Lately the stench of 'developer' seems to seep through all the emails, texts, letter, web postings and conversations from our HOA... But that should surprise no one. No one who has ever looked at the Cedar Creek documents and sees who's really in control of our supposed Home Owners' Association.

The Cedar Creek network of layers, appointees, companies, voting and non-voting reps, villages, incorporated entities and 'Development Company' Front organizations makes reading the CC&R a real headache-inducing exercise.

Something that ought to be as simple as 'One Household + one vote = election of the HOA Board' is instead more mysterious than picking a new Pope in the middle ages and more complex than the election of the Doge of Venice (look it up!).

All of this because someone (or a couple of people actually) want to keep control of our HOA - WELL PAST their sell-by Date!

As a premier set of neighborhoods we represent a big seat at the regional players' table for our controllers. They get to lord it over all of us, and direct spending, control our assets and even sell us land that the same people then still stay in control of...! Its like a Vegas magic show - but much, much worse. (Because we are forced to pay for it over and over and over.)

Most of us have not really cared. A few brave souls have fought this tin-pot tyranny for a several years. And for their troubles many other homeowners call them crazy and fake-HOA heavies have repeatedly threatened, bullied and harassed them. Still the majority of us have dismissed it all - carried on paying dues and sticking to the rules that we have no say in.

WORST of all are the home owners who volunteer as reps for the 'HOA'. Those that are not in it to reform it (and there are a few of them that slip through the net) are there to 'work for the community'... Not realizing that the are actually unpaid employees of a development company and its millionaire owners. They are less self-aware than the hapless stars of the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn cruddy comedy. Because HOA reps never get the job in the end.

Terrible fiction - WORSE reality!

So this has rumbled on forever with most of us tuning it out - why complain now? Well now the stripes of the developer are showing - because apparently its mating season for developer type and the smell is bringing the stripey skunks out to look for each other to start cuddling up.

The Cedar Creek developer-HOA is all but in bed now with the Oddo developer and the noise is disturbing. Squeaking nice squelches about each other and getting defensive and 'hissy' if any of us try to shoo off the visiting skunk with a broom!

This mating ritual seems designed to create a hybrid skunk developer baby - a big, ugly 300 unit 'luxury baby' that they are trying to nest among the trees right outside our front door. You know - they way horny skunks are wont to do. And this nauseating spectacle is sure to keep up the smell of developer skunk and, inevitably, cause more of the same to be born if the nest is allowed to settle in.

(Ok enough stink-rat analogy!) The fact is that if we had an actual HOA - where the interests of overlord developers played no part in its decisions - we would not be facing an incursion of something tremendously ugly and unwelcome above Cedar Creek Parkway. But instead we have to listen to developers squeaking both inside and outside our house.

Not much good is going to come with this fight against Oddo Developments - the greed to be on that prime and stunning site is real. And there are serious elements inside Olathe City Hall staff that detest what we have - because they are schooled to undermine single family neighborhoods. But the treachery of our HOA's role in this may ultimately cause a real shift in the landscape.

When we see what happens to our neighborhood because of Oddo Developments - we may just remember who opened the gates.... Who sang the song of Oddo... Who caries the lion's share of blame.... And who we will HAVE TO TAKE DOWN as a result...

If you've ever been skunked - its not something you soon forget.